• aszantu 12 days ago |
    I think i've seen the first part of this problem a while ago. Good stuff
  • KORraN 12 days ago |
    Related: original story from one year ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38788360
  • progbits 12 days ago |
    There must be strong punishment for frivolous lawsuits. This company is entirely in the wrong and the execs should be in prison, but instead they are wasting time and money with the copyright and other bullshit, trying to demotivate and distract the researchers.
    • visarga 12 days ago |
      > they are wasting time and money with the copyright and other bullshit

      One more reason copyright deserves to die.

      • CuriouslyC 12 days ago |
        Maybe not die, just get reformed and shortened considerably
        • 93po 12 days ago |
          I think intellectual property is a really bad concept, but I will acquiesce that short-term protection on some ideas, which can faithfully accounted back to significant investment cost, is a fair compromise. However this would never work well in our current system, and I'd rather there simply be not IP laws at all.
    • miki123211 12 days ago |
      Polish person here, as far as I understand, our SLAPP protections are basically nonexistent, which is why this is allowed to happen.

      In the US, a lawsuit like this would never fly.

      • consp 12 days ago |
        Im not familiar with polish law but does the loser pay all like in most other countries in the EU? (And pays more if deemed frivolous) does not solve the money up front problem but might bite them in the ass afterwards.
        • jakozaur 12 days ago |
          The loser pays, but the fees are capped in Poland relatively to low amount.
          • throw5959 12 days ago |
            It's not a low amount to Polish people - it can approach the territory of entire monthly or yearly wages.
            • seba_dos1 12 days ago |
              It's still a relatively low amount for bigger businesses.
              • throw5959 12 days ago |
                Sure, the point is exactly that a bigger business has upper hand.
      • jakozaur 12 days ago |
        In the USA there are many lawsuits and they could bankrupt you just by making a painful discovery.

        Though Poland needs to modernize it's law.

        • llm_trw 12 days ago |
          A reminder that Musk was willing to spend $44b rather than go through discovery in a civil lawsuit. That should tell you something about how fucked the system is.
          • Wowfunhappy 12 days ago |
            Well, but Musk was going to loose anyway. His options were:

            - Pay $44 billion.

            - Pay $44 billion and go through Discovery.

            • llm_trw 12 days ago |
              Option C). Pay 1 billion to keep the lawsuit going forever.
              • gruez 12 days ago |
                Can you really keep a lawsuit going "forever"? You'd probably run out of appeal options around 5-10 years in.
                • freehorse 12 days ago |
                  Doubtful twitter would last more than the lawsuit
                  • arcticbull 12 days ago |
                    It was doing kinda okay actually, lol, it's doing much worse now.
                  • acdha 11 days ago |
                    Twitter was profitable for a few quarters before the purchase, and the last one was distorted by a one-time legal penalty. They weren’t printing money like Facebook but a business making profits measured in the tens of hundreds of millions can hire a lot of lawyers indefinitely.
                • slater 12 days ago |
                  Ask Exxon
                  • gruez 12 days ago |
                    Surely there's a specific lawsuit you can refer to rather than pointing at a company and hoping that we can guess which case you're referring to?
                    • slater 12 days ago |
                      • gruez 12 days ago |
                        Still not a specific case. If you're referring to Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, that was decided in 2008, so at most that's 19 years if the lawsuit was filed immediately after the spill. Granted, this is more than the "5-10 years" I initially estimated, but the lengthy litigation is only over the punitive damages, so in the context of "Option C). Pay 1 billion to keep the lawsuit going forever.", that's not really applicable. At best you can keep litigation going for 19 years to avoid paying the full amount, but you're going to have to compensatory damages far before that.
                • miki123211 12 days ago |
                  This is what Alex Jones / Info Wars is trying to do; it's sort-of working in that things have taken longer than they otherwise would, but it's slowly coming to an end anyway.
                • neltnerb 12 days ago |
                  I guess if you can manage 10 years there's a pretty high chance that the other side will give up, for instance https://commonwealthbeacon.org/environment/cape-wind-calls-q...

                  Same as trying to do a construction project in San Francisco, people will come out of the woodwork [edit: meaning separate cases, but with the same basic goal] with tons of money and delay, delay, delay. https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/12/20/nefsa-new-england-fishe...

                  Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, but clearly the tactic is to come up with any challenge that takes time to resolve whether reasonable or not just because of the time and expense.

      • ajuc 12 days ago |
        The basic difference that makes it slightly less of a deal than it looks like is - unlike in the US - the whole lawsuit costs in Poland are paid by the person that lost the case.

        The issue is still having the money when you need them before you win, and the lost time and nerves. Even choosing 2 different courts in opposite sides of Poland is pointing at this tactic by Newag.

      • jfengel 12 days ago |
        The bar to proving SLAPP is quite high in the US. The protections do exist but they're so obscure and difficult that nobody feels safe, and invalid suits occur all the time.
        • wombatpm 12 days ago |
          The bar varies state by state. In CA it’s reasonable, in TX not so much.
      • dreamcompiler 12 days ago |
        SLAPP protections in the US vary by state because there is no federal anti-SLAPP statute [yet].
      • arcticbull 12 days ago |
        SLAPP laws in the US vary from place to place, from fairly strong to non-existent. California has strong anti-SLAPP protection, whereas Michigan and Alabama have none at all. There is no federal anti-SLAPP law. So at least federally and in certain US states such litigation would absolutely fly in the US.
    • jdiez17 12 days ago |
      Delay, deflect, derail.
    • phantom_wizard 12 days ago |
      This "company" is strongly connected with previous government and their prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki (company owner is his close colleague), they work more like organized crime than legal entity copying the Russians. Sometimes, but not often, they even make some assassinations and I'm afraid it may be so in this case.

      There was a female deputy Magdalena Biejat, now a president candidate, who was trying to make some public inquiry but the deputies from other party prevented that.

      It all works because the former ruling party organized around themselves some kind of semi-religious cult consisting of around 1/3 of nation, usually older people that oppose everything they don't understand.

      • praptak 12 days ago |
        It was MPs from both parties: Adamczyk (PiS) and Sowa (PO) who opposed the investigation[0].

        When it comes to "helping the business" both parties act the same way.

        [0] https://www.wnp.pl/logistyka/chca-by-sprawa-newagu-zajely-si...

      • klausa 12 days ago |
        I’m polish and I legitimately do not know what are you talking about.

        Mind expanding a bit about your perceived dramatis personae here?

      • seba_dos1 12 days ago |
        Haven't you mistaken Magdalena Biejat (senator and presidential candidate) with Paulina Matysiak (deputy making inquiries, now sued by Newag as well)? They're coming from the same political background, but are in fact two distinct women :)
      • immibis 7 days ago |
        > It all works because the former ruling party organized around themselves some kind of semi-religious cult consisting of around 1/3 of nation, usually older people that oppose everything they don't understand

        this describes every country's conservative party btw

    • whamlastxmas 12 days ago |
      I think there should be professional association punishment for arguments presented in court that done so knowingly in bad faith. The examples given in the mental gymnastics used to claim copyright infringement is a great example. It's blatantly false and not true, and it's presented despite knowing it will be easily countered, because the FUD it provides to the jury makes it appear like a stronger case. It's arguing to prey on the vulnerabilities of human psychology rather than doing so in good faith and trying to represent someone's rights under the law.
  • Kwpolska 12 days ago |
    Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42524568

    If you want to donate to the legal effort, the CCC has started a legal fund: https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2024/das-ist-vollig-entgleist

  • grzaks 12 days ago |
    Dragon Sector FTW. Trzymam kciuki!
    • MrMcCall 12 days ago |
      Not all heros wear capes. I love those guys.

      "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" --RATM

      That is, IMO, the most important album of the 20th Century.

  • praptak 12 days ago |
    Newag, the company from the presentation is still getting fat government contracts: https://en.railmarket.com/news/rolling-stock/25459-newag-s-g...
    • nicce 12 days ago |
      :( Feels like the money is flowing into multiple directions.
      • H8crilA 12 days ago |
        I think it's a case where money / influence may indeed be flowing in both directions, but fundamentally the trains are working. Unless they experience the International Compressor Failure Day, or randomly clip GPS coordinates of a "dead zone" and simply refuse to move forward - but that just means some money hadn't flown where some crooked people expected it to flow.

        One thing that is unclear to me is who is backing whom. The Left / Together Party backs our guys - no surprise there, all lefties love trains. But they are not such a big party in Poland, they can raise some ruckus in the media but I am not sure they can offer comprehensive legal/political backing in order to score a victory. They certainly would like to, it's a great story that would add them some voters.

        • ajuc 12 days ago |
          These things are pretty random and don't usually align with party boundaries. Train lovers / open source / hacker communities are marginal interests groups. If a MP is from the region where the factory is - he might support it just because of that. Morawiecki famously has close friends in Newag board and PIS as a whole is on the Newag side it seems.

          Razem has Paulina Matysiak who is a big train nerd so she's on the right side of this issue, but for a few decades the biggest supporter of hacking/open source culture in Poland was PSL's Waldemar Pawlak (he even organized Linux conferences in Palace of Culture :) ). I only found out when I attended one such conference in late 2000s and he had a presentation about Linux/Open Source in administration. It did not seem to turn the whole PSL into open source supporters and their image of backward/naive farmers certainly doesn't match with that.

          Whenever there's some politicized case parties switch sides depending on temporary interests (see protests against ACTA back in 2011 vs PIS defending their Pegasus affair and spying on opposition members and journalists in 2060-2022).

    • Kwpolska 12 days ago |
      They can’t be banned from participating in public tenders without due process. Tenders tend to have the price as the most important factor in choosing the winner.
      • solarkraft 12 days ago |
        Tenders also tend to have specific requirements and "don't sabotage the trains" seems like it would be a useful one
        • Kwpolska 12 days ago |
          How do you encode that into a requirement that won’t be thrown out by the courts as libel or targetting a specific manufacturer?
          • franga2000 11 days ago |
            It's not unfairly excluding a specific manufacturer if it's a reasonable requirement. Something like "no service vendor lock-in" and "firmware can't be silently updated remotely" would do the trick and either: 1) Newag would refuse to participate; 2) Newag would not do the same shit under the new contract; 3) Newag would do the same shit, easily found in direct breach of contract, then excluded for a few rounds of tenders on the basis of past breaches and/or active litigation.
          • solarkraft 11 days ago |
            It’s not uncommon for tenders to be even more specific (allegedly actually unfairly benefiting specific manufacturers), but this one seems highly functional & reasonable to the point of it being more of an oversight that it wasn’t originally included.
          • ptsneves 11 days ago |
            Tenders very often require prior history and experience to evaluate quality, ability or plain moral suitability. In a more publicly visible industry you see this, where a given banker or bank cannot get a license for some operations, Revolut for example.
          • hn8726 5 days ago |
            Require that the software for the trains is open would be a good start.
  • lifestyleguru 12 days ago |
    This happens in every industry heavily interconnected with politics. An individual revealing fraud or corruption is subject to regular bullying and stalking or to SLAPP when the case has gained publicity. Only now the German and American standards have arrived to Poland, long awaited.
    • BlueTemplar 12 days ago |
      Yeah, Eva Joly's memoirs were instructive in this... in particular that discussion with a general who told her how she was lucky to be investigating the oil business, rather than the weapons business, or she would be dead already.
  • lousken 12 days ago |
    shouldn't EU also investigate this a little?
    • gostsamo 12 days ago |
      The EU is not a federal government. It can investigate only if there is misuse of EU budget money or the country government is breaching it's union obligations. Otherwise, the country aligns its laws to the common european framework and then the country government is responsible for investigating when someone breaks those laws.
      • ajuc 12 days ago |
        It's VERY unlikely EU funds were never involved. Public transport and transport infrastructure is often incentivized with public money, usually with EU participation. It's hard to find big projects that had 0 EU funding.
        • throw5959 12 days ago |
          It's not a magic spell that works across corporate entity boundaries. The company itself must have taken a relevant contract project. There must be a clear intent to defraud the EU fund (defrauding others is not enough).
          • csdreamer7 12 days ago |
            > There must be a clear intent to defraud the EU fund (defrauding others is not enough).

            Saying defrauding others does not seem right to me. If you defraud a distributor of EU funds, that may have impacted EU funds; they would have a claim.

            Do you have a source for your assertion?

            • throw5959 11 days ago |
              I meant defrauding others who might have used EU funds to pay for your services - that's not defrauding the EU and a different court and agency will handle it.
      • trod1234 12 days ago |
        What about NATO?

        Surely embedding a remotely triggered off-switch, as a vulnerability for military and commercial trains (and the overall supply chain logistics) would merit some kind of investigation?

        Can't anyone with an antenna in a semi-close proximity spoof GPS signals that would engage these mechanisms?

  • Uw5ssYPc 12 days ago |
    Skilled polish hackers exposed corpo greed. Well done!
    • MrMcCall 12 days ago |
      What has been kept in the shadows will be brought into the light.

      Vampires fear the light of truth for good and proper reasons.

    • trod1234 12 days ago |
      It is actually far worse than just corporate greed. It shows an embedded vulnerability into the entire supply chain, a national security issue caused by corruption.

      They should get awards and payouts for bringing this to light now rather than the lives it would cost during a world war.

      If the company makes it so these trains stop functioning once they are in specific locations, what determines that location? A weak GPS radio signal (which have had issues with spoofing in the past)?

      What would happen if that radio signal was maliciously crafted and broadcast towards trains with targeted payloads that engage this functionality? Harvests/food stuffs rot?

      This line of thought doesn't require genius level IQ, given the plots in some of the movies today even a relative dunce could compare and come up with this. Food security has been an issue for every country for millennia.

      • immibis 10 days ago |
        Governments don't care about saving lives, except their own.
        • trod1234 9 days ago |
          Governments that have functioning representatives do, because by doing so it saves themselves.

          When the delusional, blind, and evil get into positions of power like this, take no beneficial action, make systems brittle and prone to breakage, and act as a front-of-line blocker for others that would take action to correct, then things go bad, really bad.

          Their actions end up culminating in self-induced destruction directly or more often indirectly. Once you have no food, there is no way to produce it fast enough. If you can't transport it, there is no way to get it to locations with demand (it rots).

          There are many cascade failures where after some critical juncture has been met, there is nothing that can be done to resolve the issue. A kobayashi maru, a great wave of destruction that you know is coming, but hasn't arrived yet, but everything is in its path (including themselves), and they can't change that.

          Its the fundamental nature of evil people to destroy themselves, and others within their sphere of influence, and they most often don't even realize it because they've accepted delusion making them predictable always making choices that seek such outcomes (while claiming and believing they aren't).

          The unfounded belief that A doesn't lead to B, when observations and objective measures (based externally in reality) and related predictions show A leads to B.

          They believe, it won't happen, and then it does.

  • ozim 12 days ago |
    As much as I support and vouch for the guys.

    Go public earlier is BS - they went public a year ago when it was clear there is political change in PL.

    If they would go public in before government change it could have been tragic ( company and company ownership is tightly coupled with prev political power). If previous political power would stay in power I do not believe they would go public.

    As much as they are showing in presentation work was done when previous political power was still strong - well good that they went public in the end but I do believe there still was shitload of calculations.

    So if you want to go public watch out calculate best possible time. As much as guys are great don’t believe it is pure heroism - pure heroism is stupid - so they did right thing at right time.

    • ptsneves 11 days ago |
      Are you sure? I thought the trains were part of of Dolneslaska which means local government, not central one. As far as I know there were no voivodeship changes.

      I think the lack of traction is endemic and happens regardless of current political power. This is because one of the issues they complain about was how hard was it to explain to journalists. Journalists did not get it and neither did the people. Even the Pegasus affair did not go far with the current legislature. In a more dishonest note, they should have pulled a Russian conspiracy theory on it and it suddenly would be all over the news. As it was done on home turf it just is not so serious. Just look at how the Americans do with the Chinese, there might even be nothing but it is taken seriously.